In Etruscan myth and religion

Etruscan mythology

The Etruscans were a diachronically continuous population, with a distinct language and culture during the period of earliest European writing, in the Mediterranean Iron Age in the second half of the first millennium BC...

, Mantus was a god of the underworld in the Po Valley

Po Valley

The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain is a major geographical feature of Italy. It extends approximately in an east-west direction, with an area of 46,000 km² including its Venetic extension not actually related to the Po River basin; it runs from the Western Alps to the...

, as described by Servius. A dedication to the god manθ from the Archaic period

Archaic period

In the sequence of North American pre-Columbian cultural stages first proposed by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips in 1958, the Archaic stage or "Meso-Indian period" was the second period of human occupation in the Americas, from around 8000 to 2000 BC...

 was found in a sanctuary at Pontecagnano. His name is thought to be the origin of Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

(Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

 Mantova, the birthplace of Vergil.

Elsewhere in Etruria

Etruria

Etruria—usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia—was a region of Central Italy, an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna, and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H...

, the god was called Śuri, probably to be identified with Soranus.

The consort of Mantus was Mania

Mania (mythology)

In Roman and Etruscan mythology, Mania was the goddess of the dead. She, along with Mantus, ruled the underworld. She was said to be the mother of ghosts, the undead, and other spirits of the night, as well as the Lares and the Manes...

. The names of this divine couple indicate that they were connected to the Manes

Manes

In ancient Roman religion, the Manes or Di Manes are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent the souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the Lares, Genii, and Di Penates as deities that pertained to domestic, local, and personal cult...

, chthonic

Chthonic

Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...

 divinities or spirits of the dead in ancient Roman belief

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

 and called man(im) by the Etruscans.

Mantas is also a common Lithuanian name.